Support instructors/teachers/professors using DW for class-related projects

[denise]

Title:
Support instructors/teachers/professors using DW for class-related projects

Area:
posting, communities, using DW to conquer the world

Summary:
We get at least three or four instructors per semester asking for promo codes for account creations for their classes (which we're always happy to give!) Since DW is so well-suited to keeping class journals, submitting writing assignments, or requiring class participation, I'd love to be able to code some more support for academic use.

Description:
Obviously each teacher's use of DW would be different, depending on the type of class they're teaching and the level at which they're teaching it (high school, undergrad, graduate work, adult enrichment, etc). This suggestion is less "we should add this" and more "we should brainstorm what we can add that would actually be most helpful".

I'm basically proposing a new category of accounts: "instructor accounts" or "academic accounts" and "student accounts" or "learner accounts" (names obviously subject to change, yadda). This will allow us to set different capabilities for these accounts.

The "academic package" would consist of:

* one promo code per class/class section;
* one "academic community" account per section, with slight changes to the standard community model to make them more appropriate for teacher/class interaction;
* one (or more if co-taught or if class has a TA) "instructor account" to be the admin of the community (or the instructor could use their standard DW account, but all of the instructors I know don't want their students finding their regular DW account!)
* a number of "student accounts" created via the promo code, where the students can choose their own usernames and migrate the student account to a standard account later if they'd like.

Things I can think of, off the top of my head:

* the ability for the instructor to "clear out" a community's posts and comments, moving them to some form of archive (essentially a community rename?) each semester/quarter/marking period/etc in order to store each semester's classwork separately and start each semester with a blank slate

* ability to force a student account created with a specific promo code to be subscribed to/a member of the community for the project, without having to check the checkbox during account creation

* ability to designate an instructor account for each "academic package" that will automatically subscribe to any account created from the promo code (so the instructor won't 'lose' students or have to get them to submit their username to the instructor through some other method)

* ability for the instructor to subscribe to all posts and comments made in the community (without the comm needing to be a paid community, I mean)

What other things would instructors using DW for academic/teaching purposes want to see, or would find useful?

(Edited to remove poll #7997, since this is more of an information-gathering entry than a suggestion!)

Comments

[mirthalia]

The ability for the instructor to set alerts for certain posts (ie. assignment posts) that will go out to all members subscribed to said post. Instant upcoming-deadline notification for students.

Some way to privately submit text assignments to the instructor outside of using screened comments, maybe. Though I can't quite think of how at the moment.

All that aside, this is a brilliant use for the DW service. A++.

[mirthalia]

Oh, some way to forcibly rollover student accounts might be useful. Once the kids have all finished the class and moved on I doubt the teacher will want them continuing to hang around the comm. And of course exceptions would need to be made for any kids retaking the class, so maybe a checklist of all the student users (with a "Mark All" option to make it less painful).

[azurelunatic]

Would private messages work for submitting text assignments?

[mirthalia]

Not really. Firstly, the instructor would need a method to export all private messages that are assignments in their chosen format (eg. PDF or .doc). Secondly, private messages are plaintext and refuse HTML, so you lose any ability to format things like bold, italics, or links. Thirdly, I don't think anyone who's taking a programming course and is submitting a code assignment wants to risk throwing it into a form (or having it rejected).

Finally, there's a 5,000 character limit on PMs! Not much help if you have to submit a 5-page paper.

[azurelunatic]

So in order to make private messages work for submitting assignments:

There should be a way to distinguish between "this is a message sent to communicate" and "this is a message that contains a submitted assignment"
Private messages should be exportable (bonus points for exporting in chosen format), and the export function should be able to allow exporting all messages, or only assignments
Private messages should allow attachments, because of the markup, format, and size limit issues.

[mirthalia]

Personally, it seems rather unnecessary to do it that way when some of those changes could likely be better implemented through entries or a direct submission form (which could then either forward to a proper email address or possibly some kind of document management system).

For non-attachment assignments, things like the length limit and lack of formatting are covered by standard community entries; the only issue with submitting assignment posts straight to the community is that they might get difficult for the instructor to pick out after a while. (And I think posts also have a character cap, it's just way higher.)